


Little Bitty Odd

by KillerSquirtle



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse of Power, Abusive Relationships, Au-mashup, Bad First Impressions, Being a bitty would suck and this is why, Bitties are also called readers, Bitties look really weird they're not just mini humans, Bitty Humans, Canon-Typical Violence, Chara is not a bad kid, Child Abuse, Deconstruction, Depression, Eating Disorders, Everyone's just family to reach other, Existential Crisis, Frisk is not a bad kid, GHOST STUFF, Healing from trauma, Honest Reader, I'll add more as we go, I'm going to rip fanon apart and you're gonna like it, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Magic Bullshit, Medical Experimentation, Memory Loss, Monsters on the Surface, Multi, No one is innocent, Non-Romantic Relationships, Non-Sexual relationships, Other, PTSD, Parody, Possible Body Horror, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Reader is not meant to be a self-insert, Recreational Drug Use, Reverse Harem, SAVED Asriel Dreemurr, SOUL Mechanics (Undertale), Sometimes too honest, Swapfell, Underfell, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Who Knows?, actual disabilities, allegories for disabilities, be warned, but not really, discussion of sexuality, everyone's an asshole, fighting for rights, frank discussion of violence and sex, getting better as people, its a process, lack of autonomy, learning better coping mechanisms, lots of swearing, nOBODY CAN STOP ME, non-fandom canon compliant, people are hard, possibly mad science, possibly unethical experimentation, questionable morals, questionable science, reference to time shenanigans, science research, slow building friendships, underswap - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 14:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19297813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerSquirtle/pseuds/KillerSquirtle
Summary: One day, a strange phenomenon rips through the Ebott Valley Area a few years after the Surfacing. People vanished. Not just physically, but all evidence of their existence in people's memories and physical photos are torn away too. Like they never existed in the first place.Families are left without mothers, fathers, children at the table, and nobody stops to question what they don't remember.All that is left of the people that vanished are these cocoons that later hatching into small colourful creatures; somehow neither human nor monster. They can speak from the get-go and they have basic reasoning, but almost no knowledge of the world outside the care center they're placed in.And then there's one singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody.





	Little Bitty Odd

_What the fuck happened last night? This has got to be the worst hangover ever… and why am I all wet? Did someone try to wake me up with a bucket of water? Dick move…_

She reached out blindly, trying to right herself and pull herself out of whatever puddle she found herself in. When she tried peeking an eye open, she immediately regretted it from being absolutely assaulted with buzzing florescent lights and the sheer white blurry surroundings.

She was dizzy, her head felt like it was filled with molasses in every possible way, and she was sore as all hell. Must have been one hell of a party. Still as she sat upright, she found herself coughing and hacking up phlegm; probably not the most attractive picture in the world, but she bet that nobody else around would be in any better condition.

Just as she started rubbing her eyes, she felt a sudden weight around her and immediately panicked. She flailed about for a second, but the weight was undeterred in manhandling her into standing up.

_A towel?_

Okay, so maybe somebody around was sober enough to be managing aftercare for everyone. She grunted a noise of appreciation to whoever it was helping to dry her off before tugging away to do it herself. She needed a second to recover from the vertigo of being moved and the extra set of hands pushing and pulling her was not helping…

She thought she heard a response, but her ears were still so clogged up the world around her sounded like it was muffled in foam padding. She tilted her head this way and that, conking the heel of her hand into her opposing temple to try and clear her ears.

Which they did. Slowly.

Whatever, it was progress at least.

She whipped the towel around to press it into her face and wipe it down too. She took a second to just breathe before slowly lowering the cloth and trying to open her eyes again.

It was still blurry as fuck and really, really bright fucking white. After a few blinks, she saw a dark blue and yellow blur in front of her and a large teal and reddish-orange one off to the side. A few more blinks and…

_Is that a fucking Pokémon?_

An image of the oddest creature stared back at her. Dark blue skin with gold freckles, eyes (lacking any visible pupils) and hair (that was curly and puffed up like a dandelion). Giant head and eyes with stubby thick legs and disproportionately long arms that got wider towards the hands. It looked like some chibi final fantasy character or something. If it was a Pokémon it would definitely be some kind of fairy type.

Her ears crackled to use, making her flinch from how suddenly everything got so loud. She could hear the buzzing of the florescent lights above, someone’s shoes clacking against tiled flooring and humming along to a radio nearby playing… a certain guitar riff.

An ICONIC guitar riff as it were.

She was just in time for the best part too.

She lifted her hands and bopped them to the same rhythm as the piano as it came on, like she was directing the band in a symphony. And on cue…

“ _I see a little silhouetto of a man, SCARAMOUCH, SCARAMOUCH, will you do the Fandango?_

_THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTNING, VERY, VERY FRIGHTENING ME!_

_Galileo-”_

She pointed to the teal blur joining her in the room expectantly. All she got back was silence. No accompanying ‘ _Galileo’_ from them. They even stopped humming along to the radio. She stared back at them, with her displeasure probably obviously written across her face.

“Come on, how can you leave me hanging like that, dude?” She glare-squinted over to the figure. Her vision was still a bit iffy, but she started being able to make out the shape of the towel-person; a fish monster in glasses with her red hair (Fins? Tentacles? Would it be rude to ask?) done up in a loose bun on her head. And her jaw was squarely on the floor. Was this seriously her first time with Bohemian Rhapsody? She would call her an amateur, but maybe monsters didn’t have access to the glory that is Queen while they were Underground.

With a shrug, she got back to belting out the tune while trying to do both parts on her own.

“- _Oh mama mia, mama mia, Mama Mia let me go!_

_Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for meeeee!”_

It probably was not the best idea to start doing a head-bang whilst in the grips of a migraine, but the ghost of Freddie Mercury demanded it, dammit! She had no regrets as she toppled back onto the floor from a wave of dizziness and nausea that overtook her already addled senses. Totally worth it.

She did have the sense to give herself a reprieve from singing the rest of the song, pressing the heels of her palms back into her eyes. She really was not doing the lyrics any justice right then anyway; she was still pretty phlegmy from… whatever the reason.

“Uhm, excushe me.” Oh, finally the fish speaks, even if she had a bit of a lisp from some kind of retainer. Moving a hand off from her face she looked up to the bespectacled monster that was… wow really tall. Monsters really do come in all shapes and sizes!

“Hey what’s up?” She was still chuckling probably a little drunkenly. Who cares? She was enjoying herself and her weird hangover mess. Even if the monster was looking at her like she was a freak.

“Yeah, hi, uuuuuh” The monster adjusted her glasses and leaned closer, looking her up and down where she laid. “Do you…. Can you give me your name?”

_Oh, they must have taken everyone’s keys earlier. Good plan._

“Yeah sure, my name is-”

…

What **was** her name? C’mon, think!

Come to think of it, she…. She can’t remember where she lived. How old she was. She can’t remember anything!

Fuck… Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!!!

-XXXXXXXX-

 

It had been a few days since she woke up, and she had barely moved from the spot she had staked out as hers since. Like usual, she was on top of the tallest bookshelf in the main living area of the ‘ _Bitty_ (God she hates that **fucking** term) _Center’_ she found herself now residing in. Away from everyone else.

The main living space they were given was depression to say the least. Stark white walls on every side other than the large windowed wall to the front with the door. Unfortunately, the windows only looked out onto more hallway, and not the outside world. The clinic down the hall was where they stored the cocoons until they hatched. Fortunately, she hadn’t seen any new cocoons coming in recently, and fewer and fewer new Bitties being introduced to the room.

It was crowded and it was noisy, but even still she felt completely alone. She glared down at the floors below, padded in some stupid jigsaw piece foam mats, and about a hundred or so other ‘ _Bitties’_ running about and busying themselves with infant toys and books. They had basic reasoning, language and math abilities, but they knew jack-all about anything. They couldn’t tell you what fire was or how it worked, but they knew it would hurt them if they got too close. Every conversation she had tried to have with another of her contemporaries devolved into an endless stream of ‘what’s that? What do you mean? Why?’ until she was about to scream.

She watched as two of the caretakers—a large crocodile with four arms named Jorge and a ragdoll looking thing called Tangle—came into the room carrying large trays covered in sandwiches. The Bitties soon flocked to them like baby birds crooning for food. Looked like the ‘choices’ for the day was between ham with cheese and tuna, and between orange and apple juice. Her stomach made pained noises from neglect and she gripped the front of her hoodie (probably taken off of a souvenir teddy bear if the college name on it was any indication), but the thought of eating anything at that moment just made her feel sicker than the starvation did. She’d probably skip this meal too…

The caretakers weren’t much better for conversation than the other Bitties. Most if not all of them were monsters, which she wasn’t really surprised about. Bitties’ cereal mascot-body proportions and candy colouration probably sat right in the uncanny for most humans, but was probably par for the course for monster appearance. And while the caretakers were decent at making sure everyone was safe and fed and they genuinely cared for the Bitties, their propensity for babying did not make them good conversation partners even when she was trying her damnedest to be taking seriously.

She watched them coo condescendingly at the crowd of Bitties leaping for their helpings of food and it left her with a sneer on her face. She’d made a point not to play along with their little game of house long ago. The few times that she did talk with another Bitty, she tried teaching them to swear, asked them to request playing _Deadpool_ on the TV since the caretakers kept the controller with them, and she’d even tried to break out of the building a few times. The fact that she even needed to try to break out in the first place left her with a bitter feeling. The only door in or out was locked from the outside before she even got there.

But out of everything that was going on, she was most frustrated with herself!

She could quote any meme, recite entire episodes of Futurama off by heart, and articulate the failings of late-stage capitalism and the response to climate change. But for the life of her she could not remember any more details about her own life than any other Bitty!

No name, no past, no home or family to go back to!

The story was the same for every one of the diminutive pastel pixies in the room; some… wave or disease or **something** came long and suddenly random humans are in cocoons the size of footballs while at the same time erasing their memories and everyone else’s memories of that person.

Homes were left with rooms that belonged to no one, but were mysteriously decorated. Families were left without a mother, father, or a child or two. Apartments that were supposed to be open for rent were found fully furnished and with lonely pets left inside when landlords went to give a tour. And nobody could recall why or really question it.

A few weeks later, the cocoons people found hatched into the little bastards you see before you with barely any capacity to survive independently, relying on the weirdly empathetic species that are still new to the surface yet have more money than they know what to do with.

She had expected herself to eventually break down; to lash out and scream until her throat bled. She didn’t want to cause a chain reaction from her super-empathetic yet questionably logical contemporaries, so she quickly tried to find a place to sequester herself away. But that explosive meltdown hadn’t come yet. Just a constant dull stab of hopelessness (and starvation) and a few quiet tears. Tears she still wanted to hide.

The last time she left her hiding place was to steal a couple books a bit more mature than the usual bitty affair (and a fork from Jorge’s lunch since she wanted a weapon just in case). While _Harry Potter_ was by no means advanced literature, it was a far cry from any book made of thick cardboard that taught the alphabet and basic sentence structure, colours and numbers.

…The Harry Potter series really hadn’t really held up well with time. The more she read of the books, the more logical fallacies and plot contrivances she found. How Rowling went out of her way to make Harry the chosen special one, famous despite his suffering at the hands of the normal world. Why was he even put back into the normal world anyway?! If Dumbledore knew he was being abused, why did nobody step in and take him out of that environment?! And the house system is dumb, dude. Really dumb. For a series that has a main theme of allowing all types to mix, basically homogenizing personalities together into the houses would only limit each student’s world view. And the Slytherins get bodied HARD by Dumbledore throughout. And fucking hurray for child soldiers. Even if they have magic, why is it up to eleven-year-olds to nearly die every semester cleaning up the mistakes of their teachers? Real magic and monsters showing up didn’t do the series many favours either. Shouting Latin and waving a stick around is not how magic is done…

She was right in the middle of yet another example of Snape’s fuckboy-ness when she felt a shiver go through her. Setting her book to the side, she pressed herself down on her belly and peered back over the edge of the bookshelf into the main room. She saw one of the caretakers--a deer-monster in an unusually fashionable sweater named Cashmere-talking to… No-Face and Slenderman’s lovechild?!

He was dressed in dark colours; a grey turtleneck underneath a long flowing black jacket and black everything else, his hands tucked in behind him. He nodded his weirdly smooth white mask-face a few times before turning his gaze in through the windows to the Bitty’s room. The guy had a giant gash carved out of his face from each eye, one up and the other down. The way his weird eyes scanned the area was too smooth and calculated, his smile just too perfect. He gave her the creeps and she pressed herself even flatter to try and avoid his-

Cashmere pointed her out to him. He locked eyes with her for a split second and his fucking grin just got wider and smugger. When the two of them went to the door in the glass wall, muttering something to Jorge on his way out, she slowly reached over to grab her fork. It was blunt and probably not the best in any normal cases, but she knew how monsters worked; the more you wanted them hurt, the more they would be hurt. She might be the size of a chihuahua but she would not go down without a fight. May Poseidon and Aquaman alike bless this stainless-steel quad-dent.

The man glided smoothly over towards the bookcase, not even looking down to make sure that he didn’t step on a toy or a Bitty. They all parted like the Red Sea in front of him anyway. Good to know she wasn’t the only one creeped out by the guy…

Even so, Cashmere stayed by his side and smiled up towards her perch, giving a little wave.

“Hey there Sweetie, how-”

“THE FUCK YOU WANT, KAREN?!” she cut them off in their stupid cooing tracks.

“I… My name is not Karen.” Was all they were able to stammer out. Cashmere was sweating nervously, their eyes darting between the Bitty’s ever present golden glare and their new friend’s expression. Apparently, they were making an extra effort to appeal to this guy for some weird reason.

“And my name isn’t Sweetie, now is it?!” she swung her legs over the ledge of the shelf, no longer hiding herself or her weapon as she brandished the fork in front of her. Rolling an intimidation check.

“Hello there, my dear,” Intimidation check failed. The man’s expression never faltered. “I was wondering if we could perhaps have a conversation in private about a few important matters?”

Important matters? What, like the ethics of animal testing on Bitties? This guy looked like a mobster, a revenant, a mad scientist, or some fucked up combination of the three. She felt more naked under his stare than usual with her ill-fitting doll clothes. She was not going to be left alone in a room with this man without cops present. And her own gun.

“Nuh-uh, you got something important to say, say it with witnesses around. I’m staying up here out of reach.”

Cashmere looked outright distraught, though she doesn’t know why. Since when has she ever behaved any differently? Cashmere was just about pleading with their eyes for her to not fuck up whatever was going on with the mystery man. They were probably just looking to get rid of her since she was just causing problems for the center. She didn’t fit into their wholesome ideals and image with her constant swearing, threats and general anti-social behavior.

The deer-monster turned to their guest and whispered something, severely underestimating Bitties’ hearing abilities.

“See, she’s barely come down since she hatched. She won’t eat and she barely talks to anyone. I’m worried for her.”

The reason she doesn’t talk to anyone is because nobody has anything worthwhile to say back!

Surprisingly, the mystery man held up one of his hands (holy shit, he’s got a hole in his shitty hand) to cut off the deer’s worried ramblings. The smile on his face shifting just a little bit more… genuine. She raised a brow at him.

“Any sane person in your situation would be understandably wary; you’ve just had your life and independence torn from you and you are at the mercy of strangers. I can respect your distrust.” Oh, well he would probably be the first around here. “Very well, I apologize for my rudeness at starting this conversation with a request. Please, allow me to start over;

“My name is Dr. WD Gaster; Scientific Researcher and Advisor to the Crown of the Monster Kingdom.” He said with a slight bow and his hand on his chest.

Well she was half-right in her assumption of the guy. He was in fact a (possibly mad) scientist. He even came with some very heavy titles, so no wonder Cashmere was trying to make a good impression on someone who had direct connections to the royal family. Still though, why was he here?

She jolted up in surprise as a disembodied duplicate of one of his hands came into existence just beneath her. What was this guy fucking Rayman now too?! Turns out she was not out of reach for him either way… but at least he didn’t outright grab her.

“Now, what would you prefer to be called rather than ‘Sweetie’ then?” Gaster kept his eyes locked on her expression, trying to appraise her reaction as much as she was doing to him. She glanced back over at Cashmere who was holding their breath in anticipation of her possibly leaving the shelf.

 She pursed her lips, looking between Gaster, the outreached hand, and Cashmere’s pleading eyes.

“I don’t have a name at the moment. Waiting to remember it.”

She will not break… She will not break!

…

She pointedly ignored the hand, moving off to the side of the shelf and started climbing down, her trusty weapon held in her mouth.

One of the discoveries she made about her new biology early on was that one; Bitties could jump like a motherfucker. She was only seven inches tall and she could hope up about four feet no problem. And two; she could latch onto any surface like some freaky gecko. Or Spiderman.

“Amazing…” Gaster marveled, leaning in uncomfortably close to the girl latched on the furniture. “Are you all capable of this?”

When she tried to turn her head and shoot him a glaring response, but the head of the fork stopped her when it hit against the bookshelf. With a sigh, she pulled the fork out of her mouth and pointed it angrily at the monster’s face, but before she could get a word out, she fumbled and dropped it. She hissed anxiously when she saw it land, sticking in the foam mat on the floor. Thankfully not another person, but it gave a few other nearby Bitties one hell of a scare. Cashmere shot her a deadly glare, moving to pry the fork from the padded mat and turned away to calm the spooked Bitties.

Great, now **she’s** the one feeling guilty…

“I did not mean to do that…” Oh god, Cashmere wants her head so bad right now. “Uh yeah, probably. I mean, I haven’t seen too many do it since the shit they want is usually on the floor, and they know to stay away from my spot.”

When she was about halfway to the ground, she calmly hopped down, though it was still several times her own height as to illustrate Bitties’ bouncy capability. Leaping around like fucking gummy bears or something.

Gaster watched expectantly still, a twinkle in his eye and a hand to his chin. Somehow, she found the vibe coming off him was a lot less creepy than before. Somehow. He probably wanted something from her still, but not to hurt her… Probably.

“Uh, Tada?” She flourished her arms a little bit in show, incredibly awkward.

Gaster smiled his weird crooked smile and man an ‘after you’ gesture with his hand; Cashmere was waiting for them by the door once again. So, they were going to leave the main room after all. At least she had the deer and possibly some of the other caretakers as witnesses outside. Probably. And really, what were the other Bitties going to do if shit did go down? Probably just freak out and be useless in a fight.

She grumbled a little, even as she made her way to the main door. Finally leaving the prison for the first time in days! If nothing else, this would be a great opportunity to escape. Not like she was going to be able to pull off a _Great Escape_ moment and get everyone else in on it. Even just in the hallway outside the observation room was a breath of fresh fucking air to her. One step closer to the real world as the three of them headed towards where she would assume the lobby was.

Sure enough, the hallway forked into a T and turning away from the clinic area she remembered getting carted out from after hatching, there was a reception desk and a few windows to the real goddamn outdoors! She just about bolted, brushing past Jorge, past the other weird monsters she didn’t recognize. All she cared about was right there just beyond the glass.

She leapt up onto one of the small benches pressed against the windows and gazed out to the parking lot in front of the center, the few cars in it, the sparse greenery beyond it and the orange-pink skies from the sunset. It was so easy to lose sense of time and the days with no windows around. She almost gave up ever seeing it again. She almost started to shed a tear when she pressed her forehead against the cool glass.

_Cmon, pull it together. Don’t show them weakness._

“So, you said we had business to discuss?”

-XXXXXXXX-

Cashmere brought out a folding table and several chairs into the lobby for them all to sit at because, apparently, Gaster had not come alone. The caretakers were not so subtle in placing drinks and a plate of cookies down for everyone as well, as they stared down the Bitty until she reluctantly took a sip of her juice and tucked into a cookie…

And then another three.

Fuck she was hungry.

Maybe seeing the sky was what she needed to get her appetite back.

While she was stuffing her face, the doctor and his group had taken a folder from Jorge and were looking it over and were discussing something just across the room. They were an… interesting crew to say the least. They all had the same weird vibe as she initially had about Gaster; observant and analyzing to an almost uncomfortable degree, but no actual malice. She was starting to question how she knew this; not that she would ignore her gut feelings about the strangers.

Out of the four, only one of them actually dressed in bright colours, and he was a gaudy eyesore. Orange and bright blue diamond-pattern sweater vest with a polka-dot bow tie and tan slacks. But the weirdest thing on the guy was the giant pair of bottlecap glasses he wore. She wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but his pupil-thingies seemed to almost change shape as he flailed about emoting. He was definitely the most excitable of the bunch.

This other guy… Should he be in the hospital? He looked like someone tried to cave his face/skull in right between the eyes so he had this weird Sonic uni-eye thing going on. One of his pupils was even jagged like it had exploded. Yeesh. Other than that, he was dressed head-to-toe in plain black business casual, but the bag he held in one hand had her worried. What surprises did he have in store?

The final member of their quartet kept nudging Scarface’s shoulder and showing something on his phone before shoving his weird nose-holes back into the folder. Out of the four of them, he was dressed most… well, casually would be the nice word for it. An open button-up tee over a black shirt with some kind of logo on it (probably a band or something), baggy cargo pants and possibly steel-toed shoes. Weird enough he was wearing goggles, like a cross between safety goggles and steel goggles, but they obscured his eyes completely making him hard to read. Like Gaster he had smooth gashes coming down his face, all the way to his chin, making his mouth look almost like a ventriloquist’s puppet, which made his expression even harder to discern.

…How did these guys even know each other?

More importantly, what was in the file that Jorge gave them? If this meeting was about her, that folder probably had information on her she had never seen. 

She slowed her eating as gnawing worry settled in her stomach just from wondering what they could want. Or maybe it was from inhaling five cookies after not eating for three days. She could feel pins jab into her belly in protest of its abuse. She took a long swig from her juice box to try and settle it. Hopefully the cookies were monster food so it would settle quickly. In the time it took her to chug her drain her juice til the box was a collapsed heap and reach for a fresh one, the group of… well judging from Gogglehead’s exposed radius and ulna, her best guess was that the Doctor and his group were oddly smooth skeletons. Like they were sanded down. And they all had the same holes punched out of their hands which was really, **really** weird. Please don’t let it be a cult thing.

“Allow me to introduce my colleagues: Dr Gaster, Dr Gaster, and Dr Gaster.” Gaster-proper looked all too smug at that, trying to stifle a chuckle.

“Yeah, we’re brothers.” Scarface-Gaster derided with his arms folded, glaring into the back of his brother’s skull.

The Bitty present was just as unimpressed.

“I’m sure your parents are very proud of raising four doctors, but you sure as hell should not be proud of that lame joke. Just, wow.” She said with a shake of her head. Cashmere made a strangled noise of worry but before they could properly articulate, she swore she heard Jorge giggle-snort from behind her.

“Please, forgive me,” Even Gaster-proper chuckled good-naturedly behind his hand at the reaction “I have waited far too long to make that joke.”

“Waited nothing, you make that joke every time you get the chance. You’ve just been waiting on getting someone to actually laugh.” Scarface finally took a step forward to take the conversation over from his brother, giving him a shove to the shoulder. “Proper introductions this time. You’ve already met Wingdings,”

 _HIS NAME IS WINGDINGS?!_ She found herself choking back a laugh, trying not to puke up the food her body had waited so long for. Oh god, what an unfortunate name for a doctor. He must have gotten bullied **a lot** as a kid.

“I’m Hieroglyph, but you can just call me Glyph. And these are Emoji and Ascii.” Scarface-Glyph said as he gestured to the colourful one then the slob. “Whereas Wings is a physicist and a general magicmatician, I’m in the medical field. Surgeon, general practitioner, pediatrician, you name it.”

Emoji was the next to bounce forward. He actually had the decency to kneel down and plant his chin on the table to be about eye-level with the Bitty. Though his **huge** smile and breaking into her personal space didn’t help in not freaking her out.

“Hello there, dearest! It is a pleasure to meet you! And might I say you are just the most beautiful thing I have ever seen?!” Emoji tilted his head from side to side, looking her all over as his pupils indeed did change shape like she saw before. From hearts to exclamation points to stars. “You look like the night sky…”

“Uhm, thank… you?” She said unsure. Truth be told, out of all the things she had to complain about with her new form, her colour scheme she actually did have an appreciation for. Some Bitties were not as well off as her in the complimentary colour or acceptable pattern department. One poor soul had even wound up with bright red and pink zigzags that made it hard to look at them.

Emoji’s eyes changed again into up-turned semi circles as his smile widened, making him look even more cartoonish. “Anytime! I’m actually a practicing psychologist, so you can talk to me about anything if you want!”

Somehow, she doubted someone this loud would be good at keeping secrets.

Unsurprising, Ascii didn’t move forward. With the goggles on it was hard to tell if he was looking over towards the table or still at his phone until he waved a hand in greeting.

“Hey. I’m Ascii. I’m a chemist or whatever.” His voice was clipped, and had a… buzzy quality to it? She almost wanted to say he had smoker lung, but he doesn’t have any longs to begin with. Or vocal cords. Skeletons are weird, man.

Wingdings (pfft) gestured for them all to sit down at the table, across from the Bitty and the caretakers present, Emoji eagerly reaching for the plate of cookies. Once they were all settled, Gaster was once again the ring leader for the conversation.

“So, what can you tell us about living with your condition?”

She paused mid-sip, taking a moment merely to stare back at the man.

“…What about my _condition_?” Hell, just calling it a ‘condition’ was an understatement. Almost insulting.

“Anything. Everything. How do you feel mentally, physically? How are your interactions with others like? How do the others behave? What is it like living day to day here?” Gaster seemed just a tad bit too enthusiastic in his questioning. Oddly enough, he seemed to get more animated as he went. He nearly conked Glyph on the side of the head when his hands started flailing about.

The Bitty was about to **go off**. But… she hesitated. There were so many thoughts swimming around her head, not just about her own living conditions but the wellbeing of all the others to consider.

What if she got the freedom she wanted? What if she just left out the front doors of the center into the wide-open world. Then what? She had nowhere to go, no certifiable skills to get a job, and the rest of the world was ill-suited to her needs just to get around. Not like she was in any shape to operate a stove like this.

 “Listen, I don’t claim to know what’s best for everyone and I know most of the other Bitties are just getting their bearings right now, but…” She sighed heavily through her nose and rubbed her forehead as she gathered her words, everyone in the room watched her expectantly. “But it’s too stifling. Too coddling here. It’s no place to learn how to be independent!”

She heard Cashmere and Jorge start to try and talk over her, but a raised hand from Gaster and a strangely threatening glare from Glyph and Emoji stifled that in a hurry.

“They never ask what we want, and if they do ask anything its between things that they want for us like ‘ _do you want to eat spinach or kale? Do you want to watch Magic School Bus or Arthur_?’

“They do basically everything else for us so we can’t even think about taking risks or learning as we go. Hell, they hand wash Bitties like baby sloths instead of letting them learn how to bathe themselves!”

That got all the doctors to raise a brow at the caretakers. Thankfully. That was probably the weirdest thing they did here. Fucking creeps…

“Every time I asked for internet access to try and learn what condition the world was in or piece my life back together, I was denied because they were afraid I would find something ‘inappropriate. Which… I might not look it, but I’m an adult **god fucking dammit**!” She punctuated her overwhelming frustration by slamming the table beside her. She willed herself not to let her hot angry tears fall, but she could still feel them threatening to leak from her eyes.

“And I believe you in that regard… That is not just me giving you a vote of confidence either.” Gaster leaned forward towards her, extending a hand to try and lift her chin up while Ascii slid the folder towards her. There is strong evidence that would suggest you were an adult before the catalyst that caused your condition.”

She looked between the Gaster and the other doctors, all nodding along with him. They believed her. They didn’t just write her off as some brat looking to try and get their way. It was the smallest thing, but it felt huge to her, the stabbing despair in her chest easing immensely. She glanced back down to the closed folder on the table, crawling over and hesitating to open it; whatever was in it was about her and in a way, she was… scared to learn.

Emoji cleared his throat to get her attention first, almost reading her mind. “This is the file they have on the conditions your cocoon was found in; we asked all the collection teams to keep detailed records about the events and subsequent cataloging of what was found. You were found at a local college campus student center, so most likely you were a student and therefore an adult!”

She finally took the plunge and opened to look at the first sheet in the packet. She would have retched had it not been so… fascinating. Cashmere and Jorge were not so interested as they gagged at what they saw over her shoulder.

“Is that, eugh, charred meat?”

Indeed, around the colourful sac she knew as a Bitty cocoon, was a semi-circle of burnt viscera and still smoldering fabric. There were even scorch marks on the tiled floor around them but they did not really give direction for where the heat came from.

“That, is discarded biomass from your human body; flesh, bone, and whatever clothes you were wearing at the time of the catalyst.” Glyph leaned over to point out a few almost-recognizable landmarks on the body. Bit of spine here, a chunk of liver there. Gruesome.

“Yeah, it makes sense, all that extra ‘me’ had to go somewhere when I got downsized. Any idea what zapped me though?” The Bitty was scanning over the pictures, hardly able to believe that was her in any shape.

“Not zapped. Burn marks on the surface are mostly superficial, but damage done to the DNA affected all your biomass. Heat came from an exothermic chemical reaction and exploded outward.” Ascii piped up, still typing away at something on his phone in the meantime. “Calculations using size of the most intact bones and rate of decomp on flesh put you in the ballpark of around five-foot-three and one hundred eighty pounds. Damage was too excessive to determine any other appearance traits. We couldn’t find a skull.”

Huh, so she used to be on the heftier side. Neat.

“There’s more though.” Glyph spoke softly but with a slightly dark undertone. She was unsure if it was directed at her though. He reached down and carefully flipped to the next page.

There was a manifest of all the objects found around her, or approximate guesses at what they were before they were damaged, along with photographs. A pair of melted and twisted glasses. a canvas messenger back with a couple cartoon character buttons pinned to it. A damaged and corrupted laptop. A few textbooks on art history, literature, and marketing. A couple badly damaged notebooks where most of the writing that wasn’t burnt away by acid was chicken scratch and undeniably her hand writing. A half-melted-

…

She felt her blood run both hot and cold at the same time as she stared down the photograph. She shot up onto her feet, gripping the photo so tight it crumbled at the edges in her hands. She turned slowly and stared down the two monsters behind her. Her supposed caretakers. She flipped the image over and carefully watched their reactions.

“ **This**. Do you know what **This** is?” she spat out, watching their eyes dart around. She could see recognition spark in Jorge’s eyes at least and he had the **GALL** to look ashamed still. Her ears were ringing and she saw red. If someone answered, she did not hear them. Nor would she care.

“ **This** is a fucking **insulin pump.** Something for **diabetics**.” She all but slammed the photograph into the deer-monster’s chest, the farthest up she could be to reaching their face. “ **I** am fucking **diabetic**. Don’t you think I should have known that?! Don’t you think you should have **told me?!** ”

How the fuck was she alive? How the fuck had she not had a seizure or dropped dead from not eating for three whole fucking days?!

Glyph gently tapped her shoulder, making her spin around and swat his hand away in her rage. He appeared unperturbed by her attack as he rummaged around his leather back for a moment before producing a hauntingly familiar object.

An insulin moniter.

She quickly grabbed it, going through the muscle memory (somehow) of checking herself. An individual finger was too small, so she put as much of her palm onto it as possible and winced as she was pricked. The device beeped as the screen showed was loading results… Before it displayed only an error sign.

Pulling her hand back in confusion, she looked down onto her hand where she was pricked and saw not bright red blood staring back at her but… some weird off-grey substance bleeding from her skin.

She stumbled back until she collapsed back onto the table, her eyes wide and blank. She shivered in anger. In fear. She knew so little about herself, about her new body. She didn’t know how to take care of herself had something gone wrong.

Hell, nobody knew how to treat Bitties. Were they monsters? Were they humans? What would happen if one of them eventually became sick? This was entirely new territory-

Which was why the doctors were there.

They wanted to study the new phenomenon. This was bleeding edge biology; an entirely new species just spontaneously appearing out of nowhere, metamorphosizing from a stagnant people.

But why would they want her of all people to examine? Surely one of the other dipshits back in the observation room would be far more compliant-

“…I’m the only Bitty that could legally be considered competent enough to give my consent for your study, aren’t I?” she breathed out after a few moments to regain her composure. She pinched the space between her closed eyes, trying to ease the headache that came from clenching her teeth so hard in anger.

Emoji gave an animated chuckle “Wow, she really is a smart one, isn’t she?” She could hear the other doctors hum in agreement.

“Indeed, that is what we are after.” Gaster said with an unsettling amount of enthusiasm. “Your kind is fascinating; your existence is completely unprecedented. We **need** to learn more about your physiology, your affects on souls, your psychology. Your ability to resonate could have untold benefits towards both monster and human soul health. We might even discover the process behind your creation, and how to possibly reverse it!”

Now _that_ got her attention!

“…Although… I find the colloquialism of ‘Bitty’ to be less than appropriate.”

And insulting…

“The only thing we have learned from non-extensive studies of the freshly hatched is that you have an uncanny ability to resonate your souls with the people around you. To ‘read’ their intent and emotions, and to stabilize them.” Gaster put a hand to his chin and gave a wink when he saw how she reacted positively to the possibility of getting a non-insulting species name. “I believe ‘Reader’ is a far more appropriate term don’t you think?”

Reader, huh? That would explain a lot. Why Gaster’s fake ‘professional’ smile gave her the creeps, but his creepy enthusiastic smile didn’t. How she could feel the annoying cloud of confusion coming from the crowds beneath her spot on the shelf. How she could tell the caretakers were genuinely well-meaning despite their actions. Reader seemed like an okay name. She does read a lot.

She nodded in approval, finally looking up and over to the expectant expressions of the doctor brothers. They all looked like they were trying to mask their excitement for this new frontier of research. And she knew without her consent they would be shit out of luck.

“…okay, I’m going to need to lay down some ground rules.” She paused to allow the doctors (or at least Emoji) express their pleasure at their outcome. “First of all, I am to be considered an equal partner in this. I am a person, not a pet. I will not be put in a cage with food pellets for observation, or put in silly hats for pictures on Instagram.

“Secondly, I want to be made aware of the workings and expectations of any experiment beforehand. No sneaking drugs into my food or giving me shots in my sleep. Or launching attacks at me just to see what will happen.

“Thirdly, I get to refuse or postpone any experiments if I feel they are a threat to my safety, comfort or dignity. Are we clear?”

They all nodded eagerly as expected. Thankfully. These were just the most basic of accommodation they could make in this arrangement.

But ever-unreadable Ascii took it a step further and… had his phone print out a full written contract for them. Man, monster technology was weird.

She quickly grabbed the page and read it over and surprisingly all the conditions she just voiced were written in plain but clear legal-speak. But also, that she consented to living in cohabitation with the doctors, their immediate family, and undergoing regular tests that went towards their studies of Reader biology, psychology, magicology, soulogy, and origin, and their applications.

She passed the contract back to the doctors who quickly signed their own names. Then Jorge and Cashmere signed as witnesses, though they were still quite shaken from her outburst/their own failings earlier. She saw them a little misty-eyed and she felt as though they would almost miss her even though she made a point to be a complete pain.

When the paper was passed back to her, she stared down at the last remaining blank spot on the contract.

“So, what do we call you? We can’t just call you ‘subject’ or ‘Reader’ for this entire thing now.” Emoji chirped, almost as if he knew the same question was going through her mind.

With a sigh and a quick scribble on the contract, she knew there was only one name that she could go with for the time.

“Just call me Sky.”


End file.
